Ever Been Stuck on a Plane?

Famous last words from Tiffany while sitting in the airport tonight: I’m probably going to jinx myself, but I’ve been pretty lucky that I’ve never been on a flight that got completely cancelled, where I had to fight lines of people to try to get on a new one.

Present moment: I am trapped on a plane. Trapped I say. And I might just kill somebody.

So. Today’s itinerary was supposed to be: Berlin to London (Stansted), London (Heathrow) to Dehli, to Bangkok - a solid 24 hours of traveling. Brutal. Hot weather awaits me though, so I am prepared to make the best of it.

Well, it was snowing and the first flight was delayed, but no big deal because we had plenty of time in between flights. Then we were at Heathrow. This flight is delayed a bit because they had to “clean it.” Okay. We have a 2:45 layover in Dehli, so I can handle a 30 minute postponement. It’s easy to make up that time in the air. We board around 10pm (our flight was supposed to take off at 9:30). Then we start backing out. The plane is making crazy noises. We stop. For a while. They announce that we are having mechanical difficulties and that we have to pull back in for someone to look at it. They say it’s going to take a half hour. Then an hour. Then they serve us snacks. Then we get dinner - read: we’re not taking off anytime soon so get comfortable.

Three hours later they announce that ‘regrettably’ they can not fix the plane, so we are not going to fly out tonight and that it was a fuel problem and that safety is their number one concern, blah blah blah. Okay, okay. I’d rather not fly then have my plane blow up mid-air. It’s 1am.

Deep breath.

P.s. This means that we are missing our connection to Bangkok. But wait. It gets better.

Theeeeennn, they say that they’ve called all of the hotels in London for us and everything is booked because of the weather. It flurried today. There should be no reason that all of the hotels should still be booked because of the flight delays/cancellations from yesterday. THEN they tell us that because it is so late, and Heathrow is essentially closed, and immigration won’t let us hang out in the airport, that we have to stay the night ON THE PLANE. Whaaaaattt??? I’m not kidding. We are not allowed to get off the plane… until sometime maybe between SIX and EIGHT in the morning. Maybe. Maybe, because they have no idea how long it will take to fix the plane. People are (rightfully) pissseeeddd off. I’m taking deep breaths - of recycled air.

Then they made an announcement that if you live in London you could go home and call back at 6am to see what’s going on. Strange. Then they changed that time to 8am. I just wanted to sleep in the terminal and they said no. Why would I want to sleep on a plane that is having it’s fuel-something-or-another fixed? Now, I understand that things happen. And I’m trying to be calm. However, the man in charge of this shit-show should jump off a bridge. He is clearly not telling us the entire story and is beating around the bush with his stupid answers. For being in charge, he doesn’t know shit. I want to punch him.

Deep breath.

Back to the fixing-of-the-plane. So. This flight is not cancelled. Only delayed. Delayed indefinitely. In a roundabout way, he basically said that the plan is to spend the night trying to fix the problem. If they do, we get to fly. If they don’t then they’ll try to put us on other flights. Buuuttt, there is only one flight to Dehli a day. And tomorrow’s is full. And it’s not until 9:30 at night. And they don’t fly directly to Bangkok. And there are no employees in the airport right now to help anyone try to get on a different flight. That is why we are sitting here. Still. At 3:30am. I’m going to be stuck on here for over TWELVE hours. Is this legal? Anyone? Anyone? Buehler? I feel like this should be a story on CNN, about human cruelty.

I’m phone-less, internet-less, and probably will get sick from being on this plane for so long. Dammittttt, the lady in front of us and behind us are hacking up lungs.

P.s.s. Even if they do get this plane fixed, why the F would I want to fly on it for 8+ hours halfway around the world? I hope the don’t fix it so I can fly on something else.

Stay tuned.


Update 4:29am: Kristen is sleeping on the floor, in the aisle. Oh, and some jackass keeps smoking in the bathroom and no one is stopping him. I’m gonna freak.

Update 6:30am: They turned on the lights and let people going to Bombay & Bangkok get off the plane. Hooray!! We had no idea where we were going, but we were getting of that plane. That’s all that mattered at that point. Then we were told to go to baggage claim, go through customs, and go to the Air India desk so they can put us on another plane, to somewhere. Literally - somewhere. Nobody knows….

Okay, by boarding the evil plane, technically we left London, meaning we had to go back through immigration and get our passport stamped, yet again, in order to access the airport to get another flight. Thankfully the few of us in a hurry were whisked to the front of the line, where we had to try to explain to the agent why we were entering London, if we just left. Too many questions. It was reeaalll confusing for them.

Update 7:00am: At baggage claim. Watching the bags go round and round. Ours is no where to be seen. Okay, now the belt just broke. There will be a delay in getting our bags. Nice.

Got bags. Ran to ticket counter.

Update 7:45am: First we were told that the best they could do was a flight to Delhi at noon, then sit in the airport for 13 hours until we could get a flight to Bangkok. We’d be losing another entire travel day. Then they said that we could take a flight to Bombay at 8:45am, have a one hour layover, then head to Bangkok. Okaaaaay. Me likey. Problem: Flight is in less than one hour…

Update 8:22am: Finally got checked in. Ran to security. Ran to the gate. The farthest gate by the way. Literally the last one at the end of the terminal. They held the plane and now we’re boarding.

Update 9:53am: Still haven’t left. Toilet is apparently clogged. We were supposed to leave at 8:45, but instead I’m staring at Heathrow crew members with hoses sucking out shit from the toilets. Awesome. And, mysterious air freshener is being sprayed throughout the cabin. If we all pass out, I’m blaming it on that. We finally leave sometime around 10:20am - an hour and a half late. We only have a one-hour layover in Mumbai. Not good.

Update 2:15pm: Mid-air announcement - A passenger needs medical attention. If anyone can help, please come to the flight deck.

Update 5:14pm: We find out that we get free wine. Excelleeeennntttt. We just got reeeealll happy. Keep 'em coming.

Update midnight: Landing late… have 25 minutes to make connecting flight. Stay tuned, yet again.

I’m sorry - we didn’t have 25 minutes. Apparently Mumbai’s time difference is 4 and a half hours, so we had negative-five minutes to catch the plane. Awesome. Thankfully we hear that they were holding the plane for us, but we were told to cut security lines and run. Here we go again.

We made the flight. It left late too, but whatever. We are so tired.

We left our hostel in Berlin at 7:15am on November 30^th.
We got to our hostel in Bangkok at 11:15am on December 2^nd.
Almost 48 hours of traveling.

Bedtime.